Glass and Iron
by Menzosarres
Summary: Aurora finds out just what it means to be the queen of two kingdoms, and ruling half without Maleficent at her side may prove more than she is prepared for. Originally published on tumblr.
1. Glass and Iron

**A/N**: What started as taking a few simple prompts on tumblr turned into this little series of three semi-independent one shots that came together in a fourth real ending, and now I'm willing to call it a story, so I'm giving it to you here as well. Already published on both tumblr and AO3. The other parts will be added as I reformat.

**Prompt: **Aurora is constantly asking Maleficent to leave the moors just for a moment with her so she could finally show her her kingdom and finally after a little persuasion she agrees but only for a little while.

**Glass and Iron**

"_Please_?" Aurora begged, offering Maleficent her most adorable pout and batting her eyes in a way that had won her more than one argument over the past year. "The riots have stopped, the last of the war trials have finished, and rebuilding is already underway. Won't you come with me?"

She had been begging since the first time her new queenship had required her to spend time back in the heart of the human kingdom. Leaving behind the sanctuary of the Moors had been terrifying enough before she learned Maleficent wouldn't be joining her, and those three months had been some of the darkest of her life. She had never felt more alone than in that haunted tower of iron and betrayal. She was surrounded day in and day out by men bearing spears which, no matter how readily they had sworn fealty to her, she could picture only as tools of cruelty, her mind playing tricks and casting the iron tips in shades of burning sunrise crimson, as bright and glowing as they had been when Maleficent had lain beneath them.

She had returned to the Moors subdued, spine rigid as she rode her horse across the barren track of land where the wall of thorns had once cast its tangled shadow, but when Maleficent had opened her wings and arms to her, she had crumpled into the safety she felt there, and the tears she shed seemed to cleanse away all the darkness she had seen.

The next time the kingdom demanded more of her attention than she could give from the haven of the faerie realms, she had begged and pleaded once again for Maleficent to travel with her. Something like pain had darted across her face, but the dark faerie had only answered with a slow shake of her head. "But why?" Aurora had asked. "I can't do this without you," she added, voice breaking.

"I'm sorry, little Beastie," came the soft reply. "It isn't time."

"Don't call me that," Aurora had snapped, angry at the evasive answer, but not angry enough to turn away from the comfort Maleficent offered when her anger gave way to reluctant tears at the thought of what her departure would bring the next morning. She fell asleep on the floor of her own throne room, her head in Maleficent's lap, gentle fingers tracing aimless paths through her hair. It was the first peaceful sleep she had had since her return.

She couldn't say if her second visit was better or worse. She felt stronger at the start, strong enough to start commanding more than just the simplest of rebuilding tasks recommended by her advising council. She ordered a kingdom wide ban on iron weapons. The resulting riots kept her far from home for the next three months, but she eventually began to live up to her name, earning the trust and the beginnings of love from her people as she sent out the restless army with gold from the castle's stores to repay those citizens from whom they confiscated illegal weaponry. She spent so much of her time trying to do her best for a people she had never known in a kingdom that she still felt alienated from that she had little time to change the oppressive air of her own castle, and as she rode away from its walls on her return to the Moors, it cast a dark shadow across the small seed of new growth she felt she had planted in the kingdom surrounding it. "By the time I return," she called to the captain of the guard, her voice hard with that edge of poisonous iron she had learned to wield in her short time among men, "I want that castle burned to the ground."

Back in the Moors, she didn't cry, nor did she race into Maleficent's arms. She approached slowly, coming to stand in front of the dark faerie and wishing she still felt enough like a child that she could pass on these burdens to the woman before her. Maleficent let a single finger rest beneath her chin, tilting her head up and forcing the young queen to meet her gaze. "What have they done to you?" she whispered.

Aurora jerked away. "I'm one of _them_, remember?"

Maleficent flinched back, and the look of pain on her face brought the nightmares fresh to the surface of Aurora's mind, that pain just the same as the pain of the iron burns she had once withstood to save her. "I'm sorry," Aurora said softly. "I'm just tired." As a final peace offering, she finally added, "I've missed you."

Ruling the Moors in this between time was pure healing for the young queen. Maleficent seemed determined to chase away all the things she had seen in the human kingdom, teaching her the name of every type of faerie she now ruled and entrancing her for hours with tales of the farthest reaches of the realms. A year passed before she was called away, a year for her to forget her anger and to reclaim some bit of her innocence, but when it came time to leave, she felt every bit of the weight she had put aside return to her shoulders.

It was the moment to beg, to plead, insisting, "The riots have stopped, the last of the war trials have finished, and rebuilding is already underway. Won't you come with me?"

Maleficent was silent for a long moment, and her voice was heavy when she finally replied. "I'm afraid, Beastie." It had been some time since she had used that nickname.

"You're not afraid of anything!" Aurora retorted, and Maleficent smiled at the rare glimpse of childlike naivety in those words.

"I'm afraid that… humans are…" It was the first time Aurora had seen her at such a loss for words. Her wings rustled restlessly, flexing and shifting behind her as she paced beneath the trees. "You are not your father. You are everything that is beautiful and pure in this world and seeing you in a cage of iron ruling over the sons of indulgence and greed would break me. I would see one of them raise his voice at you and it would take all of my strength to keep from snapping his neck. Should one of them so much as touch you I… I would never let you return. I would steal you away raise the thorns once more and you would never leave me—leave the Moors again."

Aurora stood in stunned silence at the raw fire in that confession, the blaze of anger and furious power glowing behind Maleficent's eyes.

"And I know you will be a great queen," she added, "and so I must let you leave."

She celebrated her nineteenth birthday in the gardens of her new palace. She had returned to the start of a construction project just as dark and heavy as the last and she had ordered it torn down, calling in the faerie craftsmen to work with the human glassblowers and create for her a shrine of living oak pillars and gleaming walls of tinted glass. Her guards nearly had an aneurysm over how vulnerable the space would leave her, but she was queen, and she had always felt that impenetrable walls only offered so much safety from a people who loathed their ruler. She would rather be vulnerable and at peace and offer trust in the hopes that it would be returned.

Still, despite the revelry in the streets below as the people celebrated their third year of peace and the growing prosperity their bond with the faerie folk had created, she sat alone on her bed, staring at the only dark glass in the entire palace; two curves of raw, faintly glowing umber casting wing-shaped shadows across the floor surrounded by a sea of blue as fragile as the sky.

"Hello, Beastie. I got your letter."

Aurora leapt to her feet and spun around, gasping in delight as she saw Maleficent silhouetted in the door to her chambers. "You came!"

The dark faerie chuckled as she was nearly knocked over with the enthusiasm of the hug she received in greeting. Aurora breathed in deeply, feeling the last lingering tension leave her spine as she felt those impossibly soft feathers fold in around her shoulders. Even on her last visit to the Moors, there had been a distance between them, both physical and emotional, and she had forgotten how small she felt in these arms.

"Of course I came." She pulled back, turning in the flickering rainbows cast by the last rays of the setting sun. "After hearing about this wonder I couldn't stay away."

There was a hint of underlying nervousness in her voice, a protective hunch to her shoulders, and Aurora gently took one of the faerie's hands in her own. "It's a different kingdom, now," she whispered.

Maleficent slowly nodded. "I believe you. I… your letter…" She tugged a well-worn scrap of parchment from the pocket of her trousers. Aurora smiled as she scanned her own words.

_Remember how dark the Moors were when you lost your wings? But still full of life, still glowing with the subdued magic of all the other faeries who just wanted to see you happy again? This kingdom has been like that, but for far too long. Stefan was darker than you could ever have dreamed of becoming, and he was one of many in a line of dark, cruel kings. It took me some time, but I've learned to see the light in the people here. To see more than the iron. I can't undo decades of darkness in three short years, but I've done what I can, and I'd like you to see. You are the only one whose judgment I actually care about. And I miss you. Every day._

_If I could have anything for my birthday, it would be to hear you call me 'Beastie' again._

_xx_

_Aurora._

"I'm only sorry I stayed away so long," Maleficent finally said, breaking the silence.

Aurora gently squeezed the hand she still held. "That's alright. I needed to… grow up. You've been my safety for so long and… if I didn't do some of this on my own, I'd have been a pretty terrible queen." She chuckled with only a hint of bitterness. "If you had spirited me off to the Moors I don't think I'd have put up much of a fight, and my people deserved better than that…" she trailed off at the odd look on Maleficent's face. "What?"

The faerie shook herself. "Nothing… just…" One side of her lips quirked up in a smile. "You sound like a queen."

Aurora felt herself blush at the sincerity in Maleficent's voice and she slowly returned the smile. "Is that a good thing?"

"Oh, yes," she murmured. "Seeing you here… all grown and alive with how very much a queen you have become… Yes. Because it means I can do this."

And those lips that had haunted her dreams in so many different ways were pressing into her own, those slender hands finding a resting place on her waist and pulling her near, close enough that she could feel the heat of a cocoon of wings on every side. There were hundreds of images in her mind and all of them were of Maleficent – leaning over her as she wakened from her sleep like death, screaming in pain and fury as she fought for her life, soaring away into the sky as the treetops trembled behind her, and holding Aurora close as though her shoulders could take every burden the young queen had ever carried. Each of those moments faded into the pure heat of this one sure touch, and as Maleficent drew back, Aurora whimpered, wondering if this was the closest she would ever know to the touch of iron.

They stood in each other's arms for a long moment after their lips parted. Finally, Aurora asked, "Will you stay, just for a few days? I'm almost ready to go home but—"

Maleficent silenced her by tapping a finger against her lip before gently cupping her face. "Of course. For now, though, you look as though you haven't slept in months." Aurora turned away, not wanting to prove her exhaustion by yawning. Maleficent chuckled softly and shook her head. "I think you ought to rest, little Beastie." She brushed her lips against the younger woman's once again, and the last thing Aurora saw was the flash of golden sparks she couldn't quite imitate no matter how finely the glass walls of her castle were spun, before she fell slowly into Maleficent's arms, and fell softly into sleep.


	2. Breathing Sunlight

**Prompt: **How about Aurora asks Mal if she'll let her fly with her through the skies? Oh my gosh, they're too cute.

**Breathing Sunlight**

"What's it like?" Aurora asked, tentatively tracing a single finger along the ridge of bone and feather that joined Maleficent's wing to her shoulder. She smiled as the wing shivered, reflexively tugging away from the ticklish motion.

"Having wings?"

"Well, yes… but I meant flying."

It was morning in the Moors, and Aurora was having a difficult time remembering a morning she hadn't woken in the dark faerie's arms. There was nothing that could quite compare to sleeping out beneath the stars with no fear of wild creatures or a sudden summer rain, and she missed the sounds of the faerie realm whenever she slept back in her human castle. Even if they hadn't yet shared any deeper intimacy than an occasional stolen kiss, as neither of their lives presented much chance for privacy, the casual intimacy of sleeping wrapped in those wings meant so much more to her.

Maleficent was always at her most open in the mornings, her words coming slow and lazy as though the longer she took to answer Aurora's endless questions, the longer they could share in a peaceful moment without any of their duties getting in the way. "Hmmm," she mused, the sound of it echoing from somewhere deeper in her chest than a human hum, and Aurora could feel the vibration of it in the air between them, a feral hybrid of the purr of some great cat and the restless growl of a weary dragon. "I'm not sure I can do it justice with words," Maleficent continued, sitting up and wrapping her hands about her knees, now looking down towards the young queen. Aurora watched in open fascination as Maleficent stretched out her wings, working out the night's stiffness in a series of shuddering motions that sent stray leaves skittering around the edge of the small clearing.

"I'd like to say that flying is pure freedom, but it isn't nearly as simple as that." Her wings settled in once again, lying close against her spine like the feathered touch of a possessive lover. "Wings are a study in trust. Every time I pull away from the earth, I have to trust them to carry me, and I have to trust myself to steer true." A wry smile lightened her words. "I've often told Diaval that I couldn't imagine being a bird… flying without magic to fall back on."

Aurora chuckled, picturing the raven-man preening at being told he had mastered something Maleficent wouldn't have dared to try. She missed him sometimes, even though she had only known him a short while. After saving Maleficent's life, the faerie had offered him his freedom and he had taken it, noting that he was no longer quite so young in raven years and that it was hard to find a suitable mate if he kept turning into a human and scaring off all the pretty birds. Aurora hoped she might someday meet his nestlings.

Just then, the sun finally rose above the treetops, bathing the clearing in full daylight and turning Maleficent's wings into a gleaming array of silken umber shot through with shimmering hints of sun-kissed carmine and edged with flecks of pearl. It always stunned Aurora just how many hues hid within those feathers, from the glow of deepest indigo and haunting violet that only appeared in the dancing light of the luminescent nocturnal fair folk, to this dazzling display of warm earthen browns and sunlit gold. She wanted to wrap herself in every one of those colors and forget the worlds she ruled for… the next century or so.

"Would you ever… take me? Up there?" Aurora's voice was so soft that, for a moment, she thought Maleficent hadn't heard. A slow shake of the faerie's head told her otherwise, but the nervous way Maleficent gently bit her lip hinted that the answer might be negotiable. "Please, Maleficent. I—I didn't ask before because… Well… I didn't want to bring up bad memories." The only way Aurora even knew Maleficent was strong enough to carry her was from watching her drag her father out the castle window and off into the night, and those weren't some of the memories the two liked to relive. Still, it had been three years now, and even if the skies were the same, she had changed, and so had Maleficent.

There was an indulgent smile on the dark faerie's lips, but still she shook her head. "Aurora… I trust these wings with my life, even after all they've been through but you… you are something altogether more precious."

Not wanting to have any more of this conversation from the ground, Aurora stood, putting herself on as even a footing as she could ever find when next to her significantly taller protector. She stepped closer, tugging at Maleficent's hands until she coaxed the fingers to relax and intertwine with her own. "_I_ trust them, though, your wings. I trust _you_. Doesn't that count for something?"

In a voice so soft Aurora could barely hear, Maleficent murmured, "More than you can ever know."

The moment was weighty with things Aurora was just beginning to understand… things drenched in the complicated parts of Maleficent's history Aurora hadn't lived and couldn't fully help her heal from. Still, now that she had started down this path, Aurora wasn't ready to give up. She stepped even closer, pulling their joined hands behind her back and holding them there until Maleficent gave in, holding Aurora's waist of her own accord. She wrapped her own hands about Maleficent's neck, tracing her thumb along one sharp cheekbone on her way to be sure she had the faerie's full attention.

"Show me then."

There was a long moment of stillness, the clearing itself seeming to hold its breath in sympathy, until the arms about Aurora's waist drew tighter and taut with purpose, and a single powerful thrust of Maleficent's wings returned the breath to the Moors.

Too startled to even close her eyes, Aurora gasped as she felt the world lurch around her, quickly tightening her hold. As they pulled beyond the treetops, the air was torn from her lungs in a cry of exhilarated laughter.

They were flying.

Maleficent was right… there's simply weren't words. It was though all coherent thought had been left behind somewhere along with all the responsibility of her crown and all that remained was sunlight and color and pure sensation. First the clouds were above her, just there, peeking out between every great thrust of Maleficent's wings, until one impossibly powerful push sent them spiraling up through a chilling mist and out the other side, leaving Aurora reeling with the thought that she may well be the only human to have ever been bathed in cloudstuff. Then, the clouds were below them, and when Maleficent allowed their ascent to pause, there was a moment when the sky felt so fragile, their place in the heavens so completely still, that her heartbeat felt out of place, and it felt as though she could breathe in sunlight rather than air.

Then they were falling, diving, plunging back down through that chill breath of cloud cover and all Aurora could do was cling on and laugh against Maleficent's shoulder, reveling in this wild moment yet knowing with everything she was that the power in those wings would protect her from the ground below.

Pulling out of the dive, Maleficent tucked in her wings for a moment and deftly flipped them over, coasting along on a warm updraft and giving Aurora just enough time to steal a quick kiss. When Maleficent didn't let her pull away, that one brush of lips quickly turned into a second touch of something longer and more thorough, and it was all Aurora could do to hold on and hope that none of it would ever end.

Too soon, the treetops were pressing up to meet them, and a delightfully misbalanced landing gave Aurora the chance to steal another kiss as they lay amid the fresh pine straw. "That was… I… Oh, thank you!"

Maleficent chuckled, gently brushing pine needles from Aurora's hair as she endured the enthusiastic hug that was still keeping her from sitting fully upright. "Thank_ you_, little Beastie."

"Whatever for?" Aurora asked.

"For… so many things." For a long moment, it seemed that was all the answer Aurora would receive, but the weight of Maleficent's gaze was almost physical, and Aurora watched something spark in her eyes. "For letting me prove to myself that, despite everything, these wings have never faltered, and… for reminding me that I do still know how to trust."


	3. Stray Feathers

**Prompt: **Aurora proves Maleficent wrong about something

**Stray Feathers**

"Why can't humans fly?" Aurora mused aloud, staring up at the clouds from where her head rested in Maleficent's lap.

After their last shared journey over the Moors, Aurora had asked if Maleficent could turn her into a bird so she could learn to fly beside her. Maleficent had shaken her head and replied, "Humans cannot fly." The words had haunted Aurora all through the night and now, in the sunlight once again, she decided to try for a more thorough answer.

"You used to change Diaval back and forth all the time… why not me?"

Maleficent let the ball of golden light she had been idly playing with drop over Aurora's chest. As the magic disappeared into her skin, Aurora giggled, delighting in the rush of ticklish energy that raced through her every time she felt Maleficent's stray magic. She wasn't sure why Maleficent did it, let her magic fade away into her body rather than the air around them, but she wasn't going to complain. It was a delightful sensation.

Hands free, Maleficent began idly braiding a lock of her hair as she answered the young queen's question. "Humans are impossibly closed-minded," she began. "No matter how much magic I pour into them, they refuse to turn into anything else, they can't change." She finished the braid and drew Aurora's hand up to hold the end while she started another on the other side. "Animals like Diaval have no sense of self-image, nothing beyond being healthy and able to create babies. Humans place so much of what they value into how they look that they are unable to accept a transformation." She took back the braid Aurora had been holding and tied them off together with a bit of magically strengthened vine. "There are many things faerie magic cannot perform on humans. Curses are the easiest, because of how willing humans are to believe in and accept the darker side of magic. Blessings, on the other hand, can do only so much. They lose power quickly with time."

Aurora listened intently through Maleficent's explanation. The faerie guardian was often sparing with words, but she was always willing to answer Aurora's questions, and Aurora never wanted to take the incredible learning opportunity for granted. "So because we can't accept being anything but the way we are, we can't change?" she asked, wanting to be sure she understood.

Maleficent nodded. "In essence, yes. Faerie magic is powerful, but the two things it can do little against are iron and the human mind."

Aurora was quiet for a while, musing over what Maleficent had said. "What if… does it matter that I was raised by faeries? Well, faeries and Diaval… Or that I've been around magic all my life?"

Maleficent looked thoughtful. "Doubtful. Though…" She trailed off, biting her lip.

"What?" Aurora asked, sitting up as her curiosity was piqued.

"You are remarkably receptive to my magic." Though her words were light, Aurora thought she detected a faint nervousness in her expression.

"How so?" Aurora gently prompted.

As she watched, Maleficent allowed those delicate amber sparks to form about her fingertips before trailing them gently down the side of Aurora's face. She shivered, feeling her lips part reflexively in a slow intake of breath at the tantalizing heat triggered by both the magic, and Maleficent's touch. When the still faintly glimmering fingers reached her bottom lip, Aurora couldn't help letting her eyes fall closed, stunned by how much more intense this felt than the usual faint sensation of magic dispersing along the skin of her throat and neck. She wanted more of it.

When she tried to take one finger into her mouth, Maleficent drew back, hastily starting an explanation. "This is the essence of my magic. Shapeless. Most humans would not even notice its presence in this form, not until I used it for something. You seem perfectly aware of it, though, and your skin accepts it willingly. I… I didn't want to tell you why I've been filling you with magic because… I have no guarantee it will work."

Feeling almost drunk on how much magic Maleficent had shared with her this afternoon, Aurora found she couldn't care less why Maleficent was doing it. "I won't be cross with you… if you do it again."

Maleficent chuckled, clearly amused with Aurora's reaction to her power. "Very well, but only a little bit. I've never given you this much in one day and I'm not sure your human subjects would be very understanding if I return you to them faerie-struck and glowing."

"Glowing?" Aurora murmured, entranced by the miniature light show taking place between Maleficent's fingertips.

"You didn't notice?" the faerie asked.

Aurora shook her head.

"Give me your hand."

She obeyed, though mildly disappointed that she wouldn't be given another opportunity to try and taste the glittering light that felt so delicious on her skin. Still, when Maleficent took her hand into the swirl of gold dancing about between her palms, she couldn't help sighing in contentment. "It feels as though you're… feeding happiness and… hunger… right into my hand."

Her eyes fell closed once more when Maleficent's thumb stroked gently across the pulse at her wrist, sending a jolt of something pure and heady racing through her veins and settling around her heart as softly as a silken curtain. It wasn't until well after Maleficent had relinquished her hand that she managed to find the daylight again.

"See?" the faerie murmured, tilting her head down and drawing Aurora's attention. Sure enough, it looked as though some small creature had lit a flame just beneath the surface of her skin, a shifting wave of light that glimmered along the length of each finger before spidering out through her palm and pooling in a golden glow at her wrist.

Fascinated, Aurora turned her hand this way and that before her eyes, staring in silent wonder until she managed a smile and a whispered, "That's beautiful."

Maleficent's answering sigh was heavy, piercing the giddy bubble her magic had created. "Yes, it is, but… I can't help wonder if it's working."

"Working?" Aurora asked as the light began to fade.

"I… You're human, Aurora. I don't want… I won't be able to bear it when…" She paused, stretching out her wings in a reflexive motion of anxiety which Aurora had long since realized was the faerie's version of pacing. "You age so _quickly_."

Finally gaining a glimmer of understanding, Aurora shook her head. "Oh Maleficent, it's far too soon to worry about me growing old. I'll not be twenty until another three weeks have passed and you're already imagining me timeworn and grey?"

"No, little Beastie." She captured a stray lock of Aurora's hair between her fingers. "I think you will be beautifully regal when you start showing silver." She let her hand fall back into her lap. "No, I worry that one day you will die, and it will inevitably be too soon. If I can… feed you on the magic that makes our lives pass so slowly in these realms… if I can convince my power to treat you as another part of me… maybe you can be queen forever."

Aurora knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that faeries could only be killed by physical means, as they had no natural end to their lifetimes, but never had Maleficent spoken of her relative immortality in so many words. "I don't think I should like to be queen forever…" she mused aloud. Waving off Maleficent's attempt at voicing protest, she added, "But I wouldn't mind having forever with you."

Any time she could bring that raw, honest smile to Maleficent's face, Aurora counted it a personal victory, and its beauty struck her anew each and every time.

"Then you don't mind me… experimenting with this, with my magic?"

Aurora grinned and shook her head. "Hardly." She scooted closer, leaning her head on Maleficent's shoulder. "Even if it does nothing at all to keep me young, do you really think I'd want you to stop? I've never felt anything so incredible in my life!"

Maleficent shook her head. "Someday, you're going to have to come back to the Moors less drained by all those petty human problems so I can show you something even more incredible," she said, voice husky and dark with her change in intentions.

Aurora grinned, pressing her lips against Maleficent's neck. "Remind me again why we're waiting?"

Maleficent pushed aside Aurora's wandering lips when the found a particularly sensitive bit of shoulder near the top of her wing. "We won't be if you keep that up," she muttered.

"I like that idea," Aurora said with a wicked smile, leaning in for a quick kiss.

Maleficent shook her head. "You know we can't; not yet."

Aurora sighed, drawing back. "I know. And I'm so sorry. I only wish I could stay away longer."

She always returned from the human kingdom exhausted, the months there a seemingly endless struggle to assert her authority and chip away at decades of misrule. Maleficent claimed it took her a full month in the Moors to return to a real state of emotional stability, and another month to feel herself again. Aurora was inclined to agree. In her first two years as queen, she had refused to spend any less than three months in the Moors at a time, yet ever since Maleficent had first visited her in the human kingdom, the people there had eaten up more and more of her time, leaving her desperate for these short weeks in the ever-peaceful faerie realms.

And Maleficent was right. She always was. No matter how often Maleficent's lips haunted her dreams and her easy, perfect kisses left her ready to shed her skin in desperation, she needed more than desperation to spark their first time together, and until she spent her full two months recovering the light and the laughter she found so rarely in the land of iron, she would wait. She wanted to be with the faerie she had fallen so easily in love with fully, not as the shell of herself that ruled that other world, and the fact that she still had never spoken of love out loud said she wasn't ready.

Determined to take her mind off of things she couldn't have, Aurora carefully returned to their original conversation. "Well then. If, like you said, I do take so well to your magic, do you think I might take to another form as well?"

Maleficent smiled at the abrupt retreat from their last words but didn't hesitate to answer. "I would never have thought so before, but… perhaps you may be the human to prove me wrong."

"Will you try? Please?" Aurora asked, giddy at the prospect of wings of her own, even if they had to be attached to the body of an animal.

"Very well."

A quick blaze of golden light flashed in Aurora's eyes, but when the spots in her vision cleared, she was disappointed to find her body still fully human.

A strangled sound drew her attention back to Maleficent, and after a brief moment of fear at the apparently stricken expression on her protector's face, it was quickly replaced by confusion as the dark faerie began to laugh.

When she finally calmed enough to answer Aurora's repeated demands of, _"What! What is it?"_ Maleficent muttered, "Well then. It's more than I thought would happen, anyway." She chuckled again. "Go dash down to the stream and take a look."

Aurora obeyed, confused and irritated and still distinctly wingless. Upon catching a glimpse of her face in the water, however, she nearly fell in. Where once Maleficent's quick braids had crowned her hair, now a delicate crop of golden feathers grew from her scalp, creating the illusion of a downy feathered hood.

Rushing back to where the faerie sat, still chuckling to herself, Aurora glowered good-humoredly down at her. "Please tell me you can fix it!"

A wave of her hand brought Aurora's familiar golden locks into prominent display about her shoulders once again, and with the guarantee of having her usual appearance back, she finally allowed her own laughter to surface. "Not exactly what I was hoping for, but I do look rather fetching in feathers, wouldn't you say?"

"Quite," Maleficent replied wryly. "That being said… this may be something we can work on. No matter how many pranks I used to play on wandering castle guards, I never managed to make one of them sprout so much as a rat's tail. Those feathers might someday become wings of your own."

Aurora's grin widened. "Do you really think so?"

"Mmhmm," Maleficent hummed, drawing Aurora down beside her once again. "I think that anyone open minded enough to kiss a creature with horns must be open minded enough to turn into a creature herself."

Tucking herself close by Maleficent's side, Aurora chuckled. "That may be the most romantic thing you've ever said to me."

Shoulders shaking with silent laughter, Maleficent replied, "I do hate you sometimes, Beastie."

Aurora answered with a kiss.


	4. Innate Human Curiosity

**A/N: **A few days before I wrote this, I answered a question on tumblr explaining why I hadn't yet written Malora smut, but would be willing to for this series. This short is the resulting compromise. It is by no means traditional sex, but it is still a definite NC-17. I wanted to explore something... alternative, and there is even a subtle reference/tribute to Angelina's double mastectomy in what I hope is a positive light.

**Prompts: **Malora discuss the issue of an heir for the two kingdoms; Malora first time; Malora smut prompt.

**Innate Human Curiosity**

They had done it. Against all odds, Aurora and Phillip had managed to forge a new agreement between their two kingdoms. Though Phillip's father was clearly less than pleased with the inclusion of the Moors in their binding, hundred-year alliance, he knew his time on the throne was limited, and that a war would only eat up what little he had left. Though she felt bad for wishing it, Aurora couldn't help but feel hopeful for the day the king passed on, or at least passed over the crown. Phillip's new wife was a lovely, kind woman, and Aurora looked forward to the days when they could sit together at these formal occasions as queens.

As it was, her subjects were pleased to no longer be allied only with faerie creatures they still neither fully understood, nor fully accepted, and the air of appeased celebration which lingered in the streets around her glass castle finally offered Aurora the time she'd been longing for; time to return to the Moors.

—-

Aurora was surprised when only Maleficent met her at the edge of the forest. Though she wondered at the absence her other subjects, she didn't mind having a moment alone with the faerie she had missed the most, and Aurora didn't hesitate to run into those open arms, trusting Maleficent to catch her and laughing when she was lifted quickly into the air and spun around in a brisk flurry of wings. She was caught off guard when Maleficent kissed her, but she quickly melted into the familiar warmth, glad to let her laughter fade into this perfect end to their time too long apart.

"You missed my birthday this year," Aurora murmured when they parted.

Maleficent hadn't stopped smiling at her since she had arrived. "I know. Twenty. Practically an old maid. I hope you'll forgive me for the assumption, but I had a feeling you wouldn't mind a… belated celebration here instead."

As she spoke, the air around them suddenly exploded with life as all the fair folk she had known in her time as queen burst from the trees in a shower of leaves and wings and multi-hued magic; the faerie counterpart to a yell of "Surprise!"

Aurora couldn't imagine she would ever stop laughing and smiling.

Maleficent was right; she didn't mind a bit. Though she had often reveled in the playful attention of these faeries when she was still a girl, she had never been so thoroughly the center of their light and joy. They braided flowers into her hair and tugged her along to the sweetest, ripest berry bushes, pulling her over to the stream only when her lips were stained crimson with the juice. She had never thought she could feel so young again, so carefree, yet she couldn't imagine hesitating as the earthling fae ushered her into the stream. She couldn't care less for the fancy human dress she wore as it made friends with the current around her ankles… until it got in the way of the clear pool she wanted to dive into, and she left it behind. By the time she climbed back up to the banks where Maleficent had been watching with that cool, detached amusement she wore so well, Aurora had lost all of her outerwear and was down to nothing more than a corset, her slip, and not a little bit of mud and sand.

The revelry continued around them, but she allowed herself to curl up by Maleficent's side.

"Thank you for this. I couldn't have imagined a better celebration."

Maleficent smiled and tugged her closer, uncaring that Aurora's hair was dripping onto her clothes and wing. She carefully lifted a wooden cup from beside her, filled with something clear and shining and smelling impossibly sweet and heady. "Honeysuckle wine?" Maleficent offered.

Aurora didn't take the cup, bending her head instead to drink from where Maleficent still held it. The flavor burst across her tongue, honeyed and light with an undercurrent of something heated and biting. It was dark and delicious, and Aurora was tempted to draw comparisons between the drink and the woman holding it.

"Careful," Maleficent murmured. "It's stronger than you'd think."

As she took the cup and allowed herself a few smaller sips, she smiled up at the protector of this realm. "You spoil me, you know?"

Maleficent shook her head. "Says the queen who lives in a castle of glass."

Aurora laughed, butting her playfully with her shoulder. "Yes, well, what can I say; you've given me a taste for the finer things in life."

It was Maleficent's turn to chuckle. "If I can make you happy with flowers, berries, and a stream, I think I might need to worry about you straying. Nature herself could tempt you away from me."

"Nature doesn't kiss nearly as well," Aurora quipped. "But I think you'd best remind me… just in case."

—-

The revelry lasted well into the night, though Aurora spent most of the last few hours dozing beneath Maleficent's wing, exhausted from her journey. Waking the next morning up in their shared hammock at the heights where the treetops met the sky, she smiled to herself, knowing Maleficent must have flown her up here without her even noticing. She pressed herself more closely into the warmth at her back, tugging the arm that rested about her midsection and coaxing it to hold her tighter.

"Good morning." Maleficent's voice rumbled at her back, low and deep with the passage of night.

"It is, isn't it?" Aurora remarked, unable to stop smiling. "Of all the things I've missed, waking up with you is the most precious to me."

There was a new stillness to the form behind her, and Aurora knew why. No matter how well she masked her intentions with a compliment, this was a conversation they had had on her every return, far too often for Maleficent to be fooled.

"I know, you have obligations here, but I do so wish I could coax you away with me more often," Aurora said, knowing better than to pressure her.

Maleficent sighed and pressed lightly against Aurora's shoulder, the subtle signal enough to let the young queen know to turn around. Lying face to face, Aurora was surprised to find one of Maleficent's hands lit up with her magic.

"It's time… for a few more secrets. I hope you will forgive me for keeping them this long, but there are some things about this realm that are hardly mine to tell."

Aurora shook her head. "You know I'd never ask you to; why now?"

"Next year you will be twenty-one; Queen of the Moors for five too-long years. You have more than earned another taste of its many secrets and… in choosing this one, I am going to be selfish again, because there is something else I desperately want you to understand."

Aurora said nothing, wanting Maleficent to continue on her own terms and in her own time. She smiled when Maleficent rewarded her patience with a quick touch of magic, feeding just a tantalizing spark of that sun-hewn power into the skin at her wrist. Then, she spoke.

"Just as much as the faeries are part of the Moors… the Moors are part of us as well."

"What do you mean?" Aurora asked when those cryptic words were allowed to hang too long in the silence.

"I mean this," Maleficent replied, gesturing at the flecks of gold still dancing between her fingers. "This is my power, my lifeblood, and half of it is sunlight. I say that quite literally. This is how I can heal plants – coax a broken branch back to health, strengthen an ailing sapling – but not humans. My magic is, by nature, bound to, well… nature. That is why I am my strongest here. These ancient moorlands hold more life than you or I could ever comprehend. They feed us pure energy and ensure our longevity, and we protect them in turn. I know many of your human subjects believe us some sort of human-animal creature, but perhaps you could startle them one day by saying they would be better off comparing us to the foliage."

"Why have I never heard any of this before?" Aurora asked, fascinated.

"While the Moors are our greatest strength, our connection to them is also our best-kept secret," Maleficent replied. "Because that connection is also our weakness. I know of very few faeries who have lived long beyond these marshlands. The longer we are away, the quicker our power wanes… and I am more vulnerable than most."

So many small curiosities Aurora had noticed were beginning to come together in a larger picture; Maleficent's unwillingness to stay long in her kingdom, the way she seemed so much more alive beneath these trees, the faerie lights that often sparked unattended in the meadows at night…

"How? Why you?"

Maleficent stretched her wings out as she spoke. "I am the guardian, the protector, and that holds more weight than you know. I accepted a closer bond with this realm, and though for a time I abused it, using my strength to act as ruler of these lands, I am intended to serve the Moors, not rule them. I can feel the pulse of the Moors within me at every moment. I feel it as it thrives, as the trees grow skyward and the faeries tend to the land… but I feel every danger as well. There are always growing pains… the cliffs are being eaten away by the wetlands, and all old growth must someday die to make room for the new. But sometimes I imagine the pain of a thousand men and their iron marching through and burning out the underbrush and cutting down the trees to build fortresses and weapons out of a life far older than you or I… and that is my vulnerability. If this sanctuary begins to fall, if the Moors die… I die with it."

Aurora could see things so much more clearly now. She remembered the cast of darkness that lived beneath the trees when the Moors were locked away behind the wall of thorns, and she remembered well the day everything bloomed back to life again. The day she brought Maleficent home. Part of her wanted to ask far more, to question the boundaries of Maleficent's bond with this realm, to seek out limitations and dangers and anything that might someday threaten the fragile peace she had created, but seeing the haunted darkness on Maleficent's face gave her pause. The burden of keeping these lands safe must have weighed heavy on their protector during the years of her father's rule. In handing over some small part of her power to Aurora, she was handing over her world into hands that also held the greatest danger to it, and that was no small trust.

"Then you shall never die," Aurora whispered, "Because I will protect the Moors with my life, and you have already sworn no harm will ever come to me."

Her carefully chosen words had their intended effect, bringing that rare and haunted smile to Maleficent's face. "That I have, Beastie. Perhaps you are right."

—-

And so Aurora unlocked another secret of the kingdom she ruled. In the following months, she began to see Maleficent's words at work, watching in awe as the interplay between the faeries and their world worked in a complicated symbiosis of giving and taking back. As a faerie child cried over a dropped acorn top, flowers bloomed to life just above the little thing's head, offering a distraction and casual cheer that lasted until the parents returned. Berries and wild greens never failed to grow overnight and every mushroom was both edible and delicious. The Moors lived and breathed to shelter and provide for the faeries, and the faeries did their part as well, curing blight and helping each tree find its path to the sun.

And then there was Maleficent. If the Moors lived and breathed for the faeries, it laughed and cried for its Protector. Every time Aurora made her smile, little patches of periwinkle and buttercup sprouted nearby, and the grass grew greener when they passed hand-in-hand. Yet the darker days were never far from her mind; she pictured the heaviness of the air and the shadow of decay hiding just beneath the wonders she had reveled in that first childhood summer. When Maleficent was in pain, the Moors had suffered greatly, yet they had never stopped trying to make her whole. In her mind, Aurora swore to herself that, just as Maleficent was determined to keep her from harm, she would do all in her power to bring her nothing buy joy, and the Moors would never be touched by human greed in all the days of her rule.

—-

The weeks passed in peace and contentment, but a single morning found her waking in surprise. She had never woken in the hammock alone, and for a moment she was worried, but as she sat up, Aurora could see the outline of a distinct pair of wings kneeling by the creek just below the next tree. As stealthily as she could, she clambered down and crept up behind her, but Maleficent froze long before she got too close, clearly aware of her presence.

She went forward anyway, startled to find the faerie undressed and realizing she had actually caught her just about to get in the water.

"So you _do_ wash! How come I've never caught you bathing before?"

Aurora couldn't seem to resist tracing her fingertips up the column of Maleficent's spine. Though her clothing always had openings for her wings, this was the first time she had seen this much skin at once, and she was fascinated by the impossibly defined muscles in her shoulders and back, as well as the bones to either side of her spine which were visibly more pointed and protruding than that of a human.

"Because you usually sleep later than this," Maleficent replied, voice low but not discernibly angry.

"Is this alright?" Aurora asked as she gently traced one of the lower outcroppings of bone. Maleficent visibly shivered but nodded, allowing Aurora's exploration to continue.

"No wonder you can carry me," Aurora mused as she smoothed her palms over the coiled power in Maleficent's upper back, delighting in the feeling of those muscles twitching and shuddering at her touch. She already knew how sensitive the skin was where it began to stretch across the bones of her wings, but she had never had so much access to that particularly delightful vulnerability, and she took full advantage, allowing her fingers to drift across the place where pristine skin faded into a darkening grey soon overtaken by the deep brown of her feathers.

Maleficent's wings spread wide at her touch, and she could hear the faerie's breath catch. "Now you play with fire, Beastie."

Aurora smiled to herself but allowed her fingers to drift into safer territory, stroking gently along the wings as she had done many times before. She knew just how to relax the dark faerie, and she laughed lightly as she realized she was quite literally smoothing ruffled feathers.

Still, as the wings lifted just a big higher, like a cat arching its spine into the hand that offered to pet it, Aurora caught sight of something she had never seen before.

A curl of something gold and gleaming was nestled into the dip just below each of Maleficent's wings. It was perhaps as wide as two of Aurora's fingers, and as she followed the curve with her eyes, she realized it continued out from beneath the shadow of the wing, arching across her side along the line of her waist and continuing onto the front of Maleficent's body, somewhere Aurora couldn't see.

Resting one hand just beneath it, careful not to touch, she nearly tipped over backwards as the gold flared brighter, as though reacting to her proximity. "What is that?" Aurora whispered.

In a flash, Maleficent's wings snapped closed against her back, forcing away Aurora's hands.

"I'm sorry, I-I didn't mean to—"

"—No, no, don't apologize." Maleficent interrupted her stammered response. "That… is something we are going to need to talk about." She sighed. "After all, I have a feeling you know how long you've been here."

Though it felt odd to hold any sort of conversation with Maleficent's naked back to her, Aurora was quick to reply. "Two and a half months tomorrow. And I've been incredibly good, have I not? I haven't mentioned it once!"

Maleficent's shoulders shook in silent laughter at her reply. "That you have. But… it isn't quite that simple."

Slowly, Maleficent rose and turned to face her.

Aurora's first response was a quick draw of breath and a whispered, "You're _beautiful,_" but the words that followed were, "But… you don't look like me."

It was true. Though there was a slight raise to the pale, flawless skin of Maleficent's upper chest, there was little else to distinguish it from the rest of her torso. Where Aurora knew her own breasts were full and capped with a pale pink nipple each, the illusion of shape given to Maleficent's chest came not from the flesh itself, but from the gold band of light that curled up along her ribcage and rose in two gleaming arches, one circling the skin around her heart, the other forming its perfect mirror, each bending inward and growing slimmer as it ended right where Aurora would have expected to find a trace of darker pink. Now she knew where those two paths beneath her wings led, and she was fascinated as she realized these gleaming inlays were alive and sparkling with the same light she had seen dancing about Maleficent's fingers each time she worked magic.

After allowing Aurora a moment to study this new wonder, Maleficent folded her wings over herself and sat once again. "No, Aurora, I don't look like you. I look like a faerie." Aurora was surprised by the heaviness to Maleficent's voice, but her next words offered new understanding. "I told you once that our connection to the Moors is our greatest secret, but perhaps this is one even more closely guarded. We… we are not sexual in the way that humans are. You share intimacies of the flesh… we share in our magic. And just as your human males are vulnerable to… what do they call it? A kick in the balls? … So I am vulnerable where my power lines run closest to the air."

"So, when I touched the skin near your wings…"

Maleficent nodded slowly. "It was a more intimate allowance than you knew."

Aurora stepped closer, looking intently into eyes she had lost herself in so many times before. "How does it work then, for faeries?" she asked. "Could… could I share that with you?"

She was more than curious; she was fascinated. In all the chatter about sex she had overheard between the maids who worked in her castle, it had all sounded a bit frightening, to be honest. A lot of thrusting and sweating and grunting and none of that seemed to explain what all the fuss was about. This, on the other hand, Maleficent's magic, was something she had experienced small pieces of before… and she had loved every second of it.

Maleficent looked astonished. "You… you would want that?"

"Of course," Aurora started, confused by Maleficent's surprise, but quickly added, "If you would want to, that is."

Maleficent stepped closer, allowing her wings to part just enough that a hint of gold flashed between them. She reached out and cupped Aurora's chin, lifting it to meet her searching gaze. "You are nothing like the rest of them," Maleficent murmured. "I shouldn't be surprised by it anymore but… every time I offer you some glimpse of the unknown, you answer me with open arms where others would have long since run in fear."

Part of Aurora wanted to protest, to insist that Maleficent might be surprised by the innate curiosity of humans not raised in fear of the _other_, but that part of her fell silent under the intensity of the purpose in Maleficent's gaze.

"Give me your hand," the dark faerie instructed.

Aurora obeyed. As she watched, Maleficent carefully brought their joined hands towards her chest, pressing Aurora's palm between the two swathes of gold. The moment their skin touched, the soft glow flared to life, lighting the air between them with a power almost too bright to look into with human eyes. Even distracted by the light, Aurora noticed immediately with the magic began to move. From the central bands of gold, cracks began to appear, branching out through Maleficent's skin in an impossibly intricate spider web of shimmering lightning. When it reached Aurora's hand, it didn't stop.

The magic crept over her fingers, feeling for a moment like nothing more than the charged air before a summer thunderstorm, but then something changed, the light began sinking into her skin, and Aurora gasped aloud.

Heat. So much more intense than anything Maleficent's magic had given her before. It seared through her veins pure and wild and unstoppable as a forest fire. By the time the magic crept its way to her wrist, Aurora's knees gave out, but Maleficent was there to catch her and pull her into waiting arms. Arms which were now gleaming with a golden latticework ready to devour every new inch of Aurora's skin it could find. She cried out as the light crept from her neck up along her hairline, finding and laying claim to an impossibly vulnerable place behind her ear that left her boneless and gasping. Maleficent swallowed the sounds escaping from her with a kiss and _oh_, there was magic there too, hot and heady and dripping off her lips more potent and dangerous than any liquor and just as delicious as Aurora had imagined.

She managed to open her eyes for just a moment, staring in awe at the gleaming being of power and light staring down at her through a mask of golden fire. Even at her most lighthearted, Maleficent still appeared dark to Aurora simply by her very nature, and seeing her like this, lit from within, was both startling and wonderful. The pattern reminded Aurora vaguely of dragon scales, but her true awe was not for the magic, but for the look of pure exhilaration and desire displayed so nakedly on Maleficent's face, knowing that this was the woman – the faerie – she loved, and feeling her unspoken words fed back to her a thousand times over through the very essence which bound them together.

And then Maleficent's hands slipped beneath the hem of her tunic, and all coherent thought fled. The heat dove gleefully inside of her from where the faerie's touch wandered up along her spine, tracing her skin with a delicate warmth to stand as sharp contrast to the pool of fire now gathering low in her abdomen. She nearly cried out with loss when the contact between them was abruptly broken, but before she could protest, Maleficent had traced a single finger along one of the seams in Aurora's top and every bit of cloth on her body fell to the earth, the heavy linen sprouting roots and leaves and becoming the flax and sisal plants it must once have been made from.

Aurora would have laughed at Maleficent's impatient use of her magic, but it had served its purpose, and that light, now able to make its way across her skin unhindered, left her entirely without breath. In a whirl of now molten-gold wings, Maleficent pulled her into her arms and took to the air, landing them gracelessly in their usual sleeping hammock with a gasp of, _"Privacy."_

And then there was nothing but magic and Maleficent's touch.

After tasting it on her lips, Aurora felt no fear of allowing her mouth to wander the pathways of auric amber, beginning at the tip of a finger and ending where it had all started, at the end of the delicate curve just over Maleficent's heart, now nearly lost amid the spread of her power. It was all she could do to press kisses to every inch of skin and flame she could reach as Maleficent's searing fingertips sought out the most susceptible places to feed her magic; slipping into her mouth, tracing down the column of her throat, bathing two desperately taut nipples in heat and light. Her eyes had finally adjusted, and even as lost as she was in power and desire, Aurora met Maleficent's gaze as often as she could, needing to see that the faerie was as desperate for this connection as she was.

When Maleficent's thigh slid between hers, slick and pulsing with the same heartbeat of power that had wakened the rest of her skin, Aurora went still, entirely without the strength to do anything but let Maleficent fill her with light. The more the power surged through her, the less she was able to feel the line where her body ended and Maleficent's began, and for a breathless moment, she could feel her lips pressed to her own skin, even though she knew they rested against Maleficent's shoulder. She could feel the energy coiling inside her, growing closer and tighter and threatening to shatter her from within. Even as joy and power flooded through her, she watched in awe as Maleficent threw back her head and laughed, her eyes glazing over with the purest white-gold as the sound of it sent the sky overhead streaming through Aurora's blood, bright and hot as desert sands racing the barren winds. Sunlight and power and _Maleficent, Maleficent, Maleficent_ filled her to bursting until she arched her spine and overflowed.

And the flowers that bloomed in the late-summer earth below them put spring to shame.

—-

Neither woman had the strength or inclination to pull themselves from each other's arms and away from the beautiful day, so the afternoon passed in blissful languor. Just as the first of the nocturnal fae began to brave the twilight air, Aurora nuzzled into Maleficent's neck and asked a question which had been pestering her for some time. "If this works, if you really do make me immortal, or at least give me a longer life than expected… what happens when I don't want to rule anymore?" She spoke her next words with teasing lightness, but she was serious in asking. "What if I want to run away with you, just like you promised when I was sixteen? Who rules in my stead?"

Maleficent was toying idly with a lock of Aurora's hair, and she seemed to be only half-listening to the queen's words. "Well, we could always have a child," she remarked, entirely offhand.

"_What?"_ Aurora spluttered, sitting upright and setting the hammock rocking.

Maleficent looked surprised. "Did I forget that part?"

"Evidently so," Aurora answered dryly. "As up until this moment I was under the impression that we are both lacking a few necessary parts for making children."

Maleficent nodded. "At the moment, that is true. But… this is purely hypothetical, you understand? This all depends on how successfully you take to my magic. Faerie reproduction does not depend on sex, not exactly. I mentioned our connection to the Moors and the plant-like design of our magic, yes?"

Aurora nodded.

"Like the flowers which need only pollen from another plant to go to seed, every faerie's magic contains everything needed to… make offspring. Except another faerie. So if it does happen that you stop aging, I don't see any reason why we couldn't have children as well."

Aurora's head was spinning. "You're serious about this?"

"Quite."

"We could… you and I…?"

"We could."

Aurora was quiet for another long moment. "And if I didn't want our child raised as royalty? If I didn't want to choose my heir that way?"

Maleficent offered a quick kiss. "Then we won't. Your throne will always be your decision, and that includes giving it up however and whenever and to whomever you choose."

Aurora pulled her closer for a deeper kiss, only parting to whisper, "Thank you; I love you."

The tracks of golden magic on Maleficent's chest – now as small and unassuming as they had been when Aurora first discovered them – pulsed brightly at her words and Aurora laughed. "Is that faerie for 'you too'?"

"No," Maleficent replied, shaking her head. Slowly, she leaned in to press a kiss to Aurora's forehead, letting just enough magic slip from her lips to make Aurora shiver. "_That_ was faerie for 'you too.'"

In that moment, Aurora knew it wouldn't matter how she managed to find the rest of the answers. It wouldn't matter if she lived another seventy years or another seven hundred. It wouldn't matter if she abdicated tomorrow or ruled until she was old, grey, and tyrannical. It wouldn't matter if the next battle would be against war, famine, or human prejudice. While these questions could only be answered by time, Aurora was loved by the most powerful being these lands had ever known, by perhaps the kindest heart as well, and Maleficent had answered all the questions that mattered with just that one kiss. Destiny take the rest.


End file.
